Day 598

The saltwater plains have been cordoned off for months and now they're building one of those eight foot tall fences. You know, the ones with barbed wire at the top and security cameras at regular intervals. There's never been any notices around the shore, only guards and signs saying "DO NOT TRESPASS".

The mayor won't answer any of our questions, resorting to the clichéd "Investigation In Progress" nonsense that got him into the office in the first place. We want answers but so far nobody's had the stones to go past the half-built fence and risk getting caught by the guards. Mean looking fellows that they are, absolute brutes who are either paid too much or not enough given their aggressive attitudes to the rest of us.

When the fence was fully built the town's curiosity only grew and meetings were had in private places to discuss what potential threats were lurking out there on the plains and why they were being kept in the dark.

Was it another sinkhole? They were becoming more and more common nowadays, what with all the electric cables being redone. Nothing's being done about the ones in town, small as most are for now some people swear they hear voices coming from beneath, music and conversations but not like anything they've ever heard before. Whole operas come out from some of the sinkholes!

What if the saltwater plains had collapsed into one gigantic sinkhole? And what if there was a city beneath if full of things like humans but eerily not quite. Like they'd have eyes too far up their heads or their arms would reach all the way to the floor but they'd be just like us in every other way.

Thoughts like these and more soon brought the town to a flurry of fear and paranoia, eventually spawning a rot that would lead to the destruction of the barely finished metal fence and the death of eighty-two percent of the town's population.

Whatever is in the saltwater plains is staying put so far but the sinkholes still sing.